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Today is National Writing Day, an annual celebration to inspire people across the UK to get writing. But this year’s annual literacy survey from the National Literacy Trust has found that children and young people’s enjoyment of writing and how often they write is in decline, suggesting that more action is needed to inspire this section of society.

Worryingly, the survey highlights that daily writing levels have been falling since 2014, and this year the Trust recorded the lowest levels of daily writing since they began asking this question in 2010 (27.0%).

What do the figures show?

Based on a survey of 47,786 children and young people aged 8 to 18 between November 2017 and end of January 2018, key findings include:

only half of children and young people enjoy writing very much or quite a lot (49.2%);

less than 1 child in 5 writes something that isn’t for school on a daily basis (17.3%);

younger children enjoy writing almost twice as much as their older peers (68.5% of 8 to 11-year-olds, 46.5% of 11 to 14-year-olds, 36% of 14 to 16-year-olds).

The percentage of children and young people who enjoy writing either very much or quite a lot decreased by 1.5 percentage points between 2016 and 2017/18, following the highest levels of writing enjoyment recorded in 2016.

Most children and young people do, however, write things on a regular basis with the use of digital technology. Most respondents said they write text messages (88.1%) and instant messages (77.8%) in their free time at least once a month, followed by short stories/fiction (44.1%) and song lyrics (35.8%). One in six children also engages in online fiction writing (such as Movellas, Wattpad) at least once a month.

This is perhaps no surprise, given the digital age we live in. However, concerns have been raised over the impact increasing use of digital technology is having on children’s ability to write. Could this be attributable, at least in part, to the declining enjoyment of writing?

Initiatives to inspire – can the World Cup help?

In an attempt to stem the decline and help inspire children and young people once again in the run up to National Writing Day, the Trust has launched a series of programmes. Drawing on the excitement surrounding the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, a range of football-themed activities, competitions, teaching resources and lesson ideas have been created to boost literacy this summer. These include:

The hope is these activities will inspire more children and young people to get writing, both within the classroom and outside it.

Previous years’ activities that have drawn on the influence of football and major sporting events suggest that these activities may well achieve their aim. Following a writing competition around the Women’s FA Cup last year, teachers said their students’ enthusiasm for writing (80%), motivation to write (76%) and confidence in writing (68%) had improved.

Similarly, the Premier League Reading Stars (PLRS) programme has had a significant impact on pupils’ reading attainment. In Christ’s School in Richmond upon Thames, 80% of pupils made more than expected progress after taking part. Commenting on the success of the programme in Girlington Primary School in Bradford, Assistant Headteacher, Daniel Walker, noted:

“Two boys made two sub levels of progress, which is the equivalent of more than a year’s expected progress in one term. One boy made dramatic progress of a whole level (3 sub-levels) in a term.”

Final thoughts

There is universal agreement that writing is important, particularly for young people, in terms of engagement and development. Even the respondents to the Trust’s survey agreed with statements highlighting the functional aspect of writing – 77.6% of children and young people agreed that writing will help them learn more and 74.7% agreed that the more they write, the better their writing becomes. Over half also agreed that they will get a better job if they are good at writing.

The fun aspect of writing, on the other hand, fared less well. Only 41.6% agreed that writing is fun, and only 34.0% agreed that writing is cool. Indeed, it has been argued that there is a need for greater emphasis on writing for pleasure. With their focus on the more fun aspects of writing, perhaps the recent programmes from the Literacy Trust and other similar programmes can help turn these statistics around.

And when next year’s National Writing Day comes around, hopefully we will be highlighting a rise in writing enjoyment.

Improving the circumstances of families from deprived backgrounds has been a key policy focus of government in recent years, with large amounts of resources and funding having been allocated to trying to improve families’ outcomes.

One approach to achieving this, which can lead to positive outcomes for both adults and children is family learning – the importance of which is receiving increasing attention.

What is family learning?

Family learning has been described as “any learning activity that involves both children and adult family members, where learning outcomes are intended for both, and that contributes to a culture of learning in the family”. It can involve both formal and informal provision, such as engagement with programmes such as Booksmart or attending events at libraries and museums.

Parents may not even be aware that activities such as reading to their children from an early age, or singing with them, constitutes a learning activity. Unfortunately, research indicates that a large number of parents do not engage in these activities at all, despite evidence that a home environment which encourages learning and communication is as important an indicator of a child’s achievement as parental income and social status.

Research from the National Literacy Trust, suggests that “parental involvement in their child’s reading has been found to be the most important determinant of language and emergent literacy”.

With real concerns raised over children’s basic skills in recent years, family learning could be part of the solution.

Lack of basic skills

Last year, the National Literacy Trust highlighted analysis which showed that 86% of English constituencies contained at least one ward with “urgent literacy need”.

The latest edition of the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy showed there was a seven point drop in P7 pupils who can write well or very well between 2012 and 2016. And in November 2016, 79% of Reception teachers in Wales surveyed for Save the Children reported seeing children starting school without the ability to speak in complete sentences. One primary headteacher highlighted the “huge need for parental awareness and engagement”.

In comparison, primary schools in Northern Ireland continue to rank among the best in the world in maths. The latest edition of Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) shows that Northern Irish children are the best in Europe at maths, and sixth best in the world.

The education system in Northern Ireland prioritises a policy of Parental Involvement in Numeracy (PIN), and government policy is to impress upon parents the role that they must play in the development of essential basic skills. The government has also just launched its ‘Giving your child a helping hand’ campaign, which is aimed at increasing parental involvement in the education of their children.

As children spend only around 15% of their time involved in formal learning activities, i.e. in school, there is substantial scope for them to be involved in more informal learning activities that will benefit both their academic and personal development.

Benefits of family learning

Research has shown that family learning interventions could increase children’s overall development levels by up to 15 percentage points for those from deprived backgrounds, and induce an average reading attainment improvement of six months.

Survey findings published by Ofsted also found that participation in family learning courses improved children’s behaviour in class, as well as their relationships with their peers and teachers. Teachers also reported noticing improvements in their pupils’ confidence levels, and their communication and interpersonal skills.

For adults, family learning offers two key positive outcomes for parents: the development of their relationship with their child, and personal skills development.

As with children, the basic skills of adults in the UK remains a cause for concern. In 2016, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published analysis which suggests that around five million adults in England lack the basic reading, writing and numeracy skills required to complete everyday tasks. Similar deficiencies have been found in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Less quantitative evidence exists of the impact of family learning engagement on adult literacy levels. However, it has been found that the average portion of adult learners achieving a qualification on family literacy programmes is higher than those on standard programmes. An evaluation of the Family Learning Impact Fund (FLIF) found that 85% of learners taking part achieved some sort of progression through taking part in a FLIF course, such as going onto a higher level of learning, or new or improved employment.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has also highlighted a wider societal impact arising from adults taking part in family learning activities, in terms of participation in volunteering and community activities.

In addition to better outcomes for children, adults and society, family learning can also benefit the government. It is relatively low cost, as it draws on many existing resources such as libraries and museums.

Sheffield City Council, for example, has estimated that for every £1 they spend on family learning, a return on investment (ROI) of £7.58 is generated. This is down to the fact that family learning is a single intervention with the potential to achieve multiple outcomes – not only for parents and children in the present, but for future generations

Final thoughts

It could be argued that the socioeconomic benefits of family learning could help to ease the burden on government resources at the same time as improving families’ outcomes.

Clearly, the benefits of family learning to society and the government can’t be ignored – particularly with increasingly tight budgets.

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In less than two months time the UK will come together to recognise the 700,000 young people in the UK who provide care and support to families and friends, on Young Carers Awareness Day on 25 January.

Every day, children and young people provide physical and emotional care and support to their family members. Helping with household tasks, they care for young siblings, administer medication and deal with the emotional and physical stress of caring for a loved one with an illness. Estimates of the number of young carers living in the UK vary greatly. But Carers Trust suggests the number of young carers to be around 700,000 – that’s 1 in 12 secondary school-aged pupils. And those are only the ones we know about. Too many are falling through the net, going unnoticed and unidentified by services who can support them.

Attainment and employment

Earlier this year we joined in publicising the 2017 Young Carers Awareness Day, whose theme was “When I grow up”. The idea was to help people to understand how difficult it can be for young carers to realise their hopes and dreams for the future without the right support in place. A survey conducted by the Young Carers Trust found that over half (53%) of those surveyed were having problems in coping with schoolwork, with nearly 60% struggling to meet deadlines. Over 70% have had to take time out of school or learning specifically to care for a family member. A third admitted that they have to skip school most weeks.

With over 50% of young carers surveyed by The Children’s Society admitting that their caring responsibilities have caused them to miss days at school, and the burden of caring impacting on the ability of children to engage fully with school activities, it is unsurprising that young carers are twice as likely to be NEET as their peers. In addition, young carers in work find caring responsibilities have a disruptive effect on their workplace attendance, with understanding and flexible employers often being the difference between young adult carers remaining in work or becoming unemployed.

Mental health and wellbeing

Caring for a relative takes a massive toll on a young person. Recent reports published by Carers Trust and the Children & Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (CYPS) both show the significant mental health burden that caring places on a young person. Stress, isolation and anxiety that can come as a result of being a carer can have a significant impact on a child as they lose much of their contact with the outside world, become removed from social groups and miss out on opportunities to experience a “normal” childhood. Projects like Off the Record’s Young Carers Project in Croydon provide support and opportunities for respite for young carers. But it is clear that as child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) are becoming increasingly stretched themselves, it is more important than ever to ensure that specialist services are also made available to young carers.

Partnerships working to provide support

Young carers often come into contact with multiple services. Education, social care, health and others all have an impact on young carers and their experiences and as a result can have a positive impact on their experiences too. Increasingly, services are being encouraged to cooperate in order to create a holistic support network for young carers, which encompasses every area of need they may have, and creates a seamless transition for young carers through all of their interactions with various services. Key coordinators and facilitators are vital in this role.

In the previously referenced report from CYPS, it was highlighted that many young carers felt positive about – and took pride in – their caring role, but that around two-thirds also said they felt “left out of things” at least some of the time. While they care for their loved ones, we need to make sure someone is caring for them.

Despite continued investment to improve social mobility, it has been estimated that at the current rate of progress it will take 50 years to close the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils in England.

Recent analysis of government data shows the gap between the most disadvantaged pupils and their non-disadvantaged peers has actually worsened over the past decade.

The research, conducted by the Education Policy Institute (EPI), found that while there has been some progress in closing the gap for disadvantaged pupils (those eligible for the Pupil Premium), this has been slow and inconsistent. The gap has also been shown to vary between areas.

And, perhaps most worryingly, for pupils described as ‘persistently disadvantaged’ (i.e. those that have been eligible for free school meals for 80% or longer of their school lives), the gap has widened – leaving these pupils over a year behind their non-disadvantaged peers at the end of primary school and more than two years behind at the end of secondary school.

Widening gap

The attainment gap is evident in the early years, continuing to grow throughout school.

Pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds were found to be 19.2 months on average behind their peers at the end of Key Stage 4. While this represents a narrowing of the gap by 2.7 months since 2007, this is not consistent across the board. And the gap for ‘persistently disadvantaged’ pupils increased by 2.4 months over the same period.

The EPI analysis indicates that the disadvantage gap grows by five months between Key Stage 1 and 2, and by 10 months between Key Stage 2 and 4.

Persistently disadvantaged pupils are shown to fall even further behind at all phases. For them, the gap grows from six months at the end of Key Stage 1, to 12 months by the end of Key Stage 2 and 24 months by the end of Key Stage 4.

It is argued that the differential rates of progress pupils make need to be tackled to stop the gap from growing throughout the stages.

Indeed, the issue can’t be solved with a one size fits all approach, particularly as there is significant variation across the country.

Variation

The disadvantage gap between local authorities ranges from no gap to seven months in the early years, five to 13 months at the end of primary school and one month to over two years at the end of secondary.

The gap is generally smaller in London, the South and the East at around 16-18 months at the end of secondary. In comparison, the East Midlands and the Humber, the North and the South West experience a much larger gap of 22 months. The largest attainment gap was found on the Isle of Wight, where disadvantaged pupils were 29 months behind their peers on leaving secondary school.

The gap was also found to become worse in rural areas. In Cumbria and Northumberland, for example, the gap widens from nine months at the end of Key Stage 2 to over 25 months by the end of secondary.

But there is also evidence of particularly good performance and notable improvements made in recent years. In Newham, disadvantaged five year-olds perform as well as non-disadvantaged five year-olds nationally, on average. And in Richmond-upon-Thames and Windsor and Maidenhead, the gap for disadvantaged secondary school pupils has closed by over six months since 2012.

This would suggest that there is certainly potential for dramatic improvements in reducing the gap in other areas.

Government action

As an historic problem, successive governments have taken action to address it via investment and targeted interventions. The current government is also working to address the issue, including through Opportunity Areas.

The EPI suggests that while this may be a good start, there are other areas across the country that are not covered by these where “social mobility is stagnating or even worsening”. And it also highlights that the system continues to fail to meet the needs of certain vulnerable groups, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, those from Gypsy Roma or Traveller communities, and Black Caribbean children.

In addition, recent commentary from the Chief Inspector of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman, raised concerns over schools focusing on exam results at the expense of the curriculum, leading to many disadvantaged children being shut out from acquiring a rich and full knowledge:

“It is a risk to social mobility if pupils miss out on opportunities to study subjects and gain knowledge that could be valuable in subsequent stages of education or in later life.”

It has been suggested that government pressure to improve performance has led to a focus on exam and test results. But Spielman argues that this is a mistake on the part of school leaders as it should “not be taken as read that higher scores for the school always means a better deal for pupils”.

Final thoughts

Clearly, while it shouldn’t be forgotten that progress has been made, a lot more needs to be done if the disadvantage gap is to close any time soon.

As the EPI concluded: “If we carry on at this pace, we will lose at least a further three generations before equality of outcomes is realised through our education system.”

If you enjoyed reading this post, you may also like our previous blogs on education-related topics.

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Despite the numerous opportunities to do so during the last few years, disengagement from participation in the electoral system in the UK remains an issue. At the start of the year, trust in the UK government had fallen to 26%. Ed Williams, the chief executive of Edelman UK, who published the survey findings, suggested that they were a result of the general public feeling let down by the “system”. This sentiment has been identified as one of the key reasons last year saw the vote to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. People have grown tired of elected leaders who they feel don’t understand or listen to them.

Trust issues

So who do people listen to? Recent survey evidence suggests that people are more likely to listen to ‘people like me’ – particularly in a world dominated by social media – rather than place their trust in institutions. Evidence has also highlighted the benefits of peer support, which involves people drawing on their own experiences to help others in similar positions make decisions. An evidence review by NESTA of the different types of peer support available found that the support is valued by those who take part and that it can improve how people feel and what they do.

Parent Champions

10 years ago, the Family and Childcare Trust received funding from the government to coordinate six month Parent Champion childcare pilot schemes in Camden, Newham and Tower Hamlets, after it was found that a lack of awareness among parents about the availability of childcare was the reason behind low take-up. The schemes were run from children’s centres, with volunteers working as Parent Champions who talked to other parents in the community about their experience of childcare services and encouraged them to make use of what was available.

Coram’s evaluation of the first year of the schemes found that Parent Champions were effective in communicating with parents and encouraging take-up of local services. More than half of the referrals given by Parent Champions to their peers were taken up, and just under half began to use the recommended service regularly. It was noted that parents responded well to the fact that the Parent Champions were “someone like them” and experiencing the same challenges.

A decade on, there are now 49 Parent Champion schemes in operation, through which the Family and Childcare Trust estimates it has reached 15,000 families. There are now plans to expand the initiative into Wales and Scotland, and develop a scheme specifically targeted at refugee and migrant families.

Childcare entitlement

One of the reasons it’s so important to increase the take-up of childcare services is the impact that childcare has been shown to have on children’s educational attainment. Closing the attainment gap is an issue that’s been prioritised by both the UK and devolved governments, and something we’ve frequently covered on the blog over the years.

In September, working parents of three and four year olds in England will become entitled to 1,140 hours of government-funded childcare per year, equivalent to 30 hours per week over 38 weeks of the year. As well as increasing maternal employment rates, the government has stated that a key focus of the policy is to try and close the attainment gap between children from deprived backgrounds and their peers. However, as the Education Policy Institute pointed out in its assessment of the impact of the entitlement, it’s difficult to see how this might be achieved as parents on the lowest incomes won’t actually be entitled to the increased entitlement.

Therefore, it’s clear that schemes that work to ensure that parents are accessing everything they’re entitled to are essential. Parent Champions have had demonstrable results – the Department of Education published statistics last year which showed that 72% of disadvantaged two year olds were now accessing their free early education entitlement, up from 58% on the previous year. With estimates that only just over half of parents are clear about what support is available to them with regards to childcare, it’s plain that they still have some work to do.

If you enjoyed this blog, you may also be interested in our other articles on childcare

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In one of the major announcements made as part of last week’s Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, declared that all schools in England must become academies by 2020, or at least have official plans to do so by 2022. Any schools who fail to comply with this timetable will be forced to do so under new powers adopted by the government.

The policy, Osborne claimed, would “set schools free from local bureaucracy” and is part of his government’s plan to “make sure that every child gets the best start in life”. As the plan was announced, Education Secretary Nicky Morgan tweeted that “Full academisation will empower great teachers & leaders giving them autonomy and accountability to let their schools succeed”. Writing in a white paper published the following day, her department stated that removing schools from local authority control would help to “empower local communities, putting children and parents first and clearly defining the role of local government”.

It was also noted that the government has decided to go ahead with the reform despite a recent letter to Morgan from Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Chief Inspector of Schools in England and head of Ofsted, which described the results of recent HMI inspections of academies as “worrying”. Wilshaw also wrote that many of the inspected multi-academy trusts displayed the same weaknesses as the worst performing local education authorities, and that the large salaries paid to the chief executives of these trusts was a “poor use of public money”.

Ongoing concerns

The Budget announcement comes almost two years after we first looked at issues with the academies programme on the blog. At that time, we reported on concerns that money which could be spent on addressing the shortage of school places in London was instead being used to open academies in areas where there was no urgent need for more places.

International experience: America and the Netherlands

After facing similar criticism to the English programme of failing to improve the attainment of poorer pupils, some are suggesting that the American charter schools programme, which heavily influenced the creation of the academies programme, is in decline. The Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, continues to be a vocal opponent of the movement, despite facing legal challenges over his refusal to guarantee space to new and expanding charter schools.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in South Carolina in November 2015, former charter supporter and potential Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton voiced her opinion that charter schools do not engage with the “hardest-to-reach” kids, or if they do, “they don’t keep them”.

Writing for the Institute of Education, University College London blog, Toby Greany and Melanie Ehren considered the experience of the Netherlands, a country whose schools system has higher rates of autonomy than England. Two issues experienced by the Dutch Schools Boards, which were set up to oversee groups of primary schools, are highlighted as particularly relevant for England:

Some Boards have been placed into special financial measures due to their failure to correctly predict their pupil numbers; this, it is argued, could befall academies in England who cover more than one local authority area.

Due to limited engagement with teaching staff and parents, the Boards have not managed to fully embed themselves as legitimate in the eyes of society.

Evidence update

Since our 2014 blog, both the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) and Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) have published new evidence on academies, focusing on their impact on pupil attainment. In their May 2015 review of available evidence, the NFER noted several difficulties in evaluating the performance of academies due to several gaps in the evidence. The review concluded that while there is some evidence to suggest that sponsored secondary academies have had a positive impact on attainment, no significant difference in progress could be found between converter academies and similar non-academy schools. In addition, no conclusive evidence was found of the impact of academisation on primary pupils’ attainment.

In a think piece published alongside the evidence review, the NFER concluded that further expansion of the academies programme by the government would require the following factors to justify it:

a clearly articulated theory of change

the right evidence

evaluation

sufficient capacity

accountability

Given the reaction to the Budget’s announcement, it can be assumed that most are of the opinion that the government has not yet managed to provide sufficient justification for its decision.

“High quality and equitable outcomes for all” – that was the theme of this year’s Scottish Learning Festival held last week at the SECC in Glasgow. A mix of academic and policy based seminars, converged with practitioner based learning during the session on Wednesday.

Out of a packed schedule we chose to attend the launch of a new initiative to encourage more STEM teachers; information on the Scottish Attainment Challenge, delivered by Education Scotland and the Scottish Government; and a promotion of employment partnership learning, showing how schools and colleges can engage more with local business to provide opportunities for students.

A fundamental commitment of the Scottish Government

The keynote speech on Wednesday was delivered by Angela Constance MSP, Minister for Education at the Scottish Government. In her address, she stressed the importance of the key themes of the conference, which were collaboration, best practice and ensuring that no child in Scotland should be unable to fulfil their potential at school because of their background or their ability to pay.

Scottish education she said, would be “driven by evidence of ‘what works’ “ and “education in Scotland must be about ability to learn, not ability to pay, at all levels” and that this was a fundamental commitment on the part of the Scottish Government.

She also launched a new initiative aimed at getting more STEM teachers into the teaching system in Scotland. Teachers, she said, were key not only to teaching but to inspiring students to pursue subjects to a higher level.

She awarded the Robert Owen Award for an Inspiring Educator to Professor Graham Donaldson, the man behind Teaching Scotland’s future report on the education of Scotland’s teachers.

Speakers in this seminar emphasised that in Scotland, policy needs to be driven by what works. The challenge, they said, could not be delivered in isolation. Kevin Helman from Stirling and Clackmannan provided a local authority perspective. He highlighted the role of head teachers sharing best practice among schools.

Employment partnerships between schools and businesses could be a key way to promote vocational learning and encourage STEM subjects in schools. We’ve written before on this blog about the need to build STEM skills in the UK and especialy the importance of providing girls with STEM role models.

There was an emphasis on how the scheme boosted employability skills, including interview technique, presentation skills and communicating with others, equipping the girls involved with practical skills valued by employers.

Practitioners and students who have been through the scheme were keen to stress that the scheme could easily be recreated if strong relationships between education and industry/business are forged. They highlighted the potential in engineering, construction and other industries which could follow the same outline as their model.

All that is good about Scottish education

The conference highlighted all that is good about the Scottish education sector. The stalls and exhibition space were filled with people who are passionate about providing a better, more equal and well-rounded education for children in Scotland.

However the conference also emphasised the core values of what academics and practitioners feel is needed to drive education forward in the future – an understanding and sharing of best practice and resources, and the ability to integrate multiple aspects of learning to create a better experience for teachers, local authorities and children alike.

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How much does family background matter when it comes to your job prospects later in life? That’s the focus of a report from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission which examined the relationship between social background, childhood academic ability and adult success in the labour market.

The study looked at the lives of 17,000 people born in Britain in the same week in 1970 to examine the impact of social background on earnings. It was specifically looking for evidence that initially low attaining children from affluent backgrounds were more likely to succeed in the labour market than their more gifted peers from less advantaged families.

Demography and destiny

The study found that :

low attaining children from better-off families have a greater chance of being highly successful in the labour market;

high attaining children from less advantaged family backgrounds are less likely to be in a high earning job as an adult.

The report suggests that more advantaged, better-educated parents ‘hoard the best opportunities’ for their less academically inclined children to help them overtake more gifted but poorer peers.

Examples of how they do this may include:

investing time and resources in education to help children showing early signs of low attainment to recover and achieve good qualifications;

providing better careers advice and guidance;

placing a high value on ‘soft skills’, such as self-confidence, decisiveness, leadership and resilience, which employers ultimately value;

prioritising school choice;

helping their children into internships and employment through informal social networks.

Breaking the glass floor

Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, believes the findings highlight a social scandal:

“It has long been recognised that there is a glass ceiling in British society that prevents children with potential progressing to the top. This research reveals there is a glass floor that inhibits social mobility as much as the glass ceiling.”

Among the suggestions the report makes to remove barriers that block downward mobility, are:

ensuring children from less advantaged backgrounds have access to the support and opportunities available to their peers, including good careers information and guidance;

improving school quality in disadvantaged areas, improving access to high-quality schools and universities and removing financial barriers to higher education;

taking action to reduce ‘opportunity hoarding’: including tackling unpaid internships, and encouraging employers to remove barriers in the recruitment process that inadvertently prevent those with high potential from disadvantaged backgrounds being successful.

Levelling the playing field for children from less advantaged families won’t happen overnight. But the report underlines the importance of making an immediate start to ensure adults of the future achieve success because of merit and effort rather than parental wealth and status:

“A society in which the success or failure of children with equal ability rests on the social and economic status of their parents is not a fair one.”

In the wake of the recession, food poverty and the rising number of foodbanks in the UK have frequently been in the headlines. At the other end of the spectrum, another nutrition-related issue that tends to be picked up on regularly by the media is child obesity. However, in a report released to coincide with their annual conference in May of this year, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) called attention to a concern that has not been as headline-grabbing: schools are now providing a great deal of welfare support to pupils that goes above and beyond their usual remit, including teachers bringing in food from home for pupils who have been sent to school hungry.

On average, 2.4 children in England and Wales were arriving to school hungry on at least one occasion per week;

28% of teachers reported an increase in the number of children arriving to school hungry;

31% of teachers indicated that they had to spend a disproportionately higher amount of time with children who arrived at school hungry than those who did not;

51% suggested that hunger is a significant factor in the exam performance of pupils; and

if a child arrives at school hungry, teachers estimated that they would lose an hour of learning time that day; for those that come to school without breakfast once a week, this equates to 8.4 weeks of learning time (70% of a term) over the course of their entire primary school career.

Empty stomachs, empty brains?

The findings of a literature review, published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience in 2013, of the effects that eating breakfast has on children’s behaviour and academic performance indicated a “mainly positive effect of breakfast on on-task behaviour in the classroom” and highlighted evidence that frequent breakfast consumption had a positive effect on children’s academic performance, with the clearest effects seen on mathematic and arithmetic grades. The review also noted the positive influence of school-based breakfast initiatives, more commonly known as ‘breakfast clubs’.

The impact of school breakfast clubs

As well as carrying out research on the impact of breakfast clubs, Kellogg’s operates a support network for schools to run clubs, offering grants and training materials. According to the company, 69% of the teachers they surveyed in 2013 said that running a breakfast club had had a positive impact on their ability to teach their class.

This sentiment is echoed by the School Food Trust, whose review of the impact of primary school breakfast clubs in deprived areas of London found that the average Key Stage 2 results of pupils in 13 primary schools were significantly higher a year after the introduction of the initiative. In North Lanarkshire, one primary school’s award-winning breakfast club has demonstrated the educational benefits of having children at school early, well-fed and ready to learn. While other studies of the impact of school-based breakfast initiatives have found less definitive evidence of their impact on children’s academic performance, their positive effect on pupils’ attendance and punctuality is noted, which can be no bad thing for their academic potential.

The Education Endowment Fund is currently undertaking a randomised control trial of school breakfast provision involving 36,000 pupils in 200 schools across England. The study aims to look at impact on attainment and cost-effectiveness of different models, and the evaluation report is due to be published in 2016.

Supporting breakfast clubs

Understanding the impact of nutrition on children’s outcomes is crucial if the government is to provide additional support to local authorities whose schools are providing breakfast clubs for their pupils. Although support is available from companies like Kellogg’s and Greggs, as well as charitable organisations, these are often competitive grants-based schemes, with application processes that only place further pressure on already overstretched teachers and schools. And in the face of ongoing cuts to local authority funding, many are echoing the call of the NAHT for the government to do more to support schools to cope with the consequences of the austerity agenda, as well as make the improvements that are being demanded of them.

Effects of a free school breakfast programme on children’s attendance, academic achievement and short-term hunger: results from a stepped-wedge, cluster randomised controlled trial, IN Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol 67 No 3 2013, pp257-264

Effects of a free school breakfast programme on children’s attendance, academic achievement and short-term hunger: results from a stepped-wedge, cluster randomised controlled trial, IN Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol 67 No 3 2013, pp257-264

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is an independent charity that works to break the link between family income and educational achievement, ensuring that children from all backgrounds can fulfil their potential and make the most of their talents. Funded by the Sutton Trust and Department of Education, the EEF aims to raise the attainment of children facing disadvantage by:

Identifying and funding promising educational innovations that address the needs of disadvantaged children in primary and secondary schools in England.

Evaluating these innovations to extend and secure the evidence on what works and can be made to work at scale.

Encouraging schools, government, charities, and others to apply evidence and adopt innovations found to be effective.

At the beginning of October, the EEF published reports outlining findings from seven of their projects. Writing on the EEF blog, Dr Kevan Collins explained that “we investigate the strategies schools use to improve their students’ attainment. We use independent evaluators to assess whether these methods really make a difference, with a focus on their impact on pupils eligible for free school meals”. On the National Foundation for Education Research’s (NFER) blog, Marian Sainsbury praised the work of the EEF in the area of evaluation, particularly their use of the randomised control trial (RCT) method of evaluation, a method which she argued is not used often enough in education.

One of the EEF’s evaluation reports received particular attention in the media: an evaluation of the ‘Increasing Pupil Motivation’ initiative, which aimed to improve attainment at GCSE level by providing incentives to Year 11 pupils in England. The initiative was largely targeted at relatively deprived schools, and offered pupils two incentives: one financial, in which the amount was reduced if they did not maintain standards in four measures of effort (attendance, behaviour, classwork and homework); and the other offered the incentive of a trip or event, under which pupils were allocated a certain number of tickets, to be reduced if they did not meet the four measures of effort.

Despite previous research indicating that the provision of incentives directly for test scores had a positive effect, the EEF evaluation of the provision of incentives specifically for effort found no significant positive impact of either type of incentive on GCSE attainment in English, maths or science. The findings did, however, suggest that the financial incentive had a significant positive impact on classwork effort in each of the three subjects, while both incentives had a positive impact on GCSE maths for pupils with low levels of prior attainment.

Findings from evaluations of another six initiatives were also published: